Films - 01/14/2015

Ben Plowden, Director of strategy and planning for Surface Transport at Transport for London and Jean-Marc Jancovici, Founder of Carbone 4, explain the difficulties and leverages of sustainable peri-urban mobility.

Events - 03 December 2014

Second phase of the discussion series launched by La Fabrique de la Cité on urban data's potential for transforming cities.
What new services have been created for city residents using urban data? What partnership models is this development based on? And how does it align with a global innovation strategy?

Events - 16 September 2014

What mechanisms create value in cities? Cities possess assets associated with their geographical environment and their economic activities. What are the resources cities can call on? What growth drivers can they mobilize? On the basis of the work carried out by Anne Power, Professor at the London School of Economics, on “Phoenix cities,” this seminar, which brings together about 100 urban development specialists, will assess the economic strategies deployed by European cities.

While the challenges faced by cities become increasingly complex to resolve, they also have fewer and fewer resources with which
to do so. This apparent paradox can however become an additional source of motivation and innovation. Optimising the use of local natural
resources (water, energy and space), making optimum use of existing infrastructures (buildings, roads and networks) and extracting maximum value from constantly diminishing financial resources: these are the big challenges now faced by our cities

13-14

La Fabrique de la Cité continues its study of the impact of data management on urban transformation. Five Chief Data Officers responded to La Fabrique de la Cité’s invitation to present current development projects in Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. We get to grips with how these cities are using data to become more efficient, invent new urban services and, as a result, provide greater transparency for their citizens.

La Fabrique de la Cité is conducting a workshop in close collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mobile Experience Lab on the evolution of lifestyles and its impact on urban transformation. Professor Federico Casalegno is the principal investigator, and he will lead the international observatory that La Fabrique de la Cité and MIT Mobile Experience Lab have decided to launch.

From the web

03/31/2015 SustainableCitiesCollectiveEuropean Mayors Band Their Cities Together to Fight Climate ChangeIn view of the upcoming UN climate talks, COP 21, at the end of the year in Paris, representatives of thirty European cities have pledged to reduce by 40% greenhouse gas by 2030 greenhouse at a meeting on 26 March 2015 at the Paris City Hall. For Mayor A. Hidalgo, large cities are "at the forefront of the fight against climate change".

03/30/2015 City LabWhere Millennials Are Moving NowIt’s not just the media that’s preoccupied with where millennials are choosing to live. Mayors, economic developers and urban leaders across the country have developed strategies to attract the so-called “young and the restless” to their cities. The urban planner Markus Moos goes as far as to suggest our cities are not only experiencing gentrification, but youthification.

03/26/2015 GizmodoOur Cities Could Become High-Density Solar Power PlantsSolar energy has a dark side. Those gargantuan plants that sprawl out like deconstructed disco balls sacrifice valuable open space and put wildlife, and possibly human lives, at risk. A new study by Stanford researchers says that focusing our solar energy efforts in already-developed urban areas could yield more power—by collecting energy where we actually use it.

03/03/2015 FastCompanyDesigners Imagine Creative Ways That Boston Can Live When It's Mostly UnderwaterMany of the designs, from floating parks to hydrokinetic canals, invite water in rather than try to keep it away.#
As climate change raises sea levels, many cities face the near certainty of flooding in the future. Take Boston. By 2100, forecasts show water levels climbing by five to six feet in its Harbor area, meaning that 30% of the city could be inundated.

New Information Technology (IT) and citizen connectivity have the potential to allow city thinkers and dwellers to enhance and optimize the city. Urban experimentations are necessary to understand how.